I’m the managing director of 30 Point Strategies, a strategic communications firm built on solid journalism credentials and the basic belief strong writing reflects clear thinking. My insatiable curiosity led me to a nearly 15-year career as a journalist, first at Bloomberg News and then the Wall Street Journal, where I shared a Pulitzer Prize and won a Gerald R. Loeb Award. I like to think my success was pre-ordained when legendary NYC columnist Jimmy Breslin blew cigar smoke in my face at a Greenwich Village bar. I joined Corporate America in mid-2006, first at Raytheon and then Lockheed Martin, where I managed all aspects of communication – media, speeches, internal memos– and advised senior executives on being effective communicators. It’s not only about finding the right words, though that’s important; it’s also about the messages we send constantly that shape perceptions in a critical way.

AOL 401K Blow-Up: Worst Way to Deliver Bad News to Employees

This column has been updated to clarify that AOL’s CEO went on CNBC to discuss 2013 earnings, not to announce the benefit change, and that AOL stated the new policy for calculating employer contributions to 401(k) plans last fall in their benefits package and subsequent briefings.

There are so many things wrong with the AOLAOL controversy about 401(k) benefits it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s give it a whirl.

While the company says it informed employees of the 401(k) cuts last fall, many seemed to find out for the first time law week from a Washington Post article that linked to a 27-page benefits package that stated the policy for calculating employer contributions at the bottom of page 5 and didn’t denote it as a policy change.

Two days later, the issue gained increased attention during a CNBC interview by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong to discuss the company’s strong earnings, and again at a subsequent companywide conference call with employees. In that town hall, Armstrong blamed increasing benefits costs in part on the nation’s new healthcare law and two “distressed babies” he said cost the company $1 million each to keep alive last year.

Then when employees complained about the “secret” cuts, as they called them, on Twitter and elsewhere, he sent a terse email saying the intent of the call was to be “open and transparent.”

When the furor over both the 401(k) and his comments refused to die down, Armstrong reversed course over the weekend, sending an email to employees late Saturday that included an apology and ended with a description of himself as a “passionate advocate for the AOL family.”

So let’s take a step back and start with the decision to change the way the company contributed to employee 401(k) plans; last fall, AOL leadership apparently decided that rather than pay into the plan throughout the year, they would provide a lump-sum payment at the end of the year. They’d save money by not having to contribute to the plans of those who leave the company at any point during the year.

Sure employees would lose out if they left and not be able to derive investment benefit throughout the year if they stayed. But in the pantheon of benefit changes, this is hardly cataclysmic and it reflects the reality many companies are grappling with as benefit costs continue to rise, which they were doing before Obamacare. Do you pass these additional costs onto employees, eat into profits or split the difference?

IBMIBM, for example, made a similar change in December 2012, received some criticism and moved on. Which begs the question: so what was different here? It’s Armstrong and the ham-handed way he delivered this news.

Employees deserve to hear bad news directly and a change as big as the 401(k) calculation deserved a communication from senior leadership explaining the rationale. While an AOL spokesman contacted us to say 75% of employees attended benefit briefings last fall where the change was disclosed, the uproar last week suggests the news wasn’t as clearly disseminated as the company believed.

What’s worse, Armstrong played the blame game: Hey, it’s not my fault – blame President Obama and those two women with complicated pregnancies last year. One of those women, the wife of an AOLer, wrote a moving response on Slate that would make anyone, except possibly Armstrong, lower their head in shame.

On top of that, both the company and Armstrong forgot the logic and balance the non-one percenters use. AOL’s healthcare costs increased $7.1 million because of Obamacare, the company says. But Armstrong’s compensation quadrupled to $12 million in 2012. I’m not suggesting he doesn’t deserve it, but it’s important to consider how these sums compare when you’re doling out pain to employees.

Finally, I’m sure AOL senior executives had numerous discussions and studied the impact of the 401K change before making a decision. These sorts of decisions generally take months to make. So rather than roll over because of pushback, they needed to stick with their position – no matter how unpopular in the short term – and do a better job explaining the rationale and how it will help AOL over the long haul.

That said, perhaps they did make a radical decision. After all, this is the same CEO who fired an employee during a live meeting because that person took a picture of him. He sent an apology to employees that time too.

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What he did was typical Tpublican. He tried to shaft the workers and blame the company $12 million a year. No one is. When the public and the employees found out, and rebelled, he stepped back. Perhaps we should do more of this type of “rebelling?” Have a great day!

A lot of companies reduced their 401k matches when the Great Recession hit and many have not restored the old formulas. Employees will just have to learn to deal with the new world order. In the days of the defined benefit pension plan, many employees never stayed the 10 years that were required to vest even minimum benefits and were entirely dependent on Social Security and their own savings when they retired. The golden days of the 401k plan (the late 1980′s and the 1990′s) are gone. Maybe it is time to slash your cable TV package and do a little more saving on your own through an IRA plan.